STUDY - Fiction - Mortgage One's Soul
"Mortgage One's Soul"
Development history
Time passes
relentlessly... COVID, economic, financial, nervous
crisis, and other "problems" keep coming... But, what's
more important, my years are passing (I've already
"jumped" 53).. I feel "from somewhere" that the 7 (maybe
even 10) books that I will write "in the end" are
"mandatory"... And, if I have days, they will exist...
With or without readers.. .It's a must... So I'll switch
to "planned" writing (with a work pace), starting with the
date of this comment.
Plus, everything I will achieve will also be a kind of
merger with my effort from the "Let's Make Something!"
section. where everything will be like a pedagogical
course through the "How to write a book" section.
Dorin M - 15 octombrie 2020
Now... I've come to
"modify" the name/title which changes from "Around the
worlds" to "Mortgage One's Soul".
The efficiency study in terms of search engine "finding"
of this title (works) revealed that using the old name
(even though it was my favorite, a preference "hardened"
in the 10+ years of development) led to a "positive"
result very close to zero, with a maximum percentage of
confusion that attracted the identification of other
sites, other works, more or less similar (for details you
can study the structure created around the sections "How
to make a game..." and/or "How to write a novel...").
And, yes, I reached a kind of much more advanced form of
the "story", especially due to the effort to develop a
"visual novel" type game based on the work... Form that
will be found in a kind of "final achievement" that I will
never return to (any author knows that if he goes back
through what he wrote, he will always find something to
change, complete, etc.).
Dorin M - 05 septembrie
2019
But, I can also
leave for viewing what existed as a "historical"
presentation, what was before the existence of the "Development
Status" page, somewhere on December 15, 2016...
Dorin M - 31 iulie
2019
Mortgage
one's soul/ Around the worlds - Let's get to know each
other!
What
will be posted here is a kind of hobby of mine since I was
in 8th grade (soon to be 49 years old - May 31, 2017).
Then (1982), following a Romanian language and literature
competition, I wrote for the first time something
assimilable to prose and that's how my writing hobby began
to manifest itself.
After several essays, even poetry, being times when the "communist" censorship displayed its full force, I chose the "line" of "S.F." type prose. (sci-fi, as it is called now) because it allowed me to write "more freely" by drawing inspiration from the times I was living in. It was a kind of translation of the Aesopian type of reality that, afterwards, I never left. And so, in 1986, I was receiving an award for my first SF short story. ("The Simulator") at a genre contest. Here, for the first time, the characters Dan (without Mircea), Typhoo, Thank and Ada appear...
The "Simulator" is a story in which Dan is "sent", through the interventions of Thank, into a "simulation" that will turn out to be real some time after its conclusion. The "background" motive is represented by Thank's attempt to get rid of Dan and keep Ada only for himself, against the background of her materialistic hedonism. Times change and Terra begins to conquer the galaxy until the League civilization is encountered, from the Arcturus arc group, which restores natural order in the galaxy and "puts an end" to the actions of the Terrans. Thank, who has become Admiral Clark, will be defeated by Dan's humanity and Ada remains... So many details are enough, so as not to influence the course of the game!
The
next step is represented by a novel called "Gaia request",
about the intelligence of the great celestial bodies,
especially the planets and stars (the matter). Through
this intelligence, a kind of human communication is
achieved through which life is created in as many places
as possible... It seems like a "smokey" idea, but after
all these years I have not been able to come across
anything like it…
This
was followed by the army (being times when it was
mandatory) where, being more "naughty", I maintained the
wall newspaper of the military unit where I was "placed"
and wrote the following short story ("Coincidences"),
completed in early 1989 , the year of the "revolution".
"Coincidences"
is the story of... Dan, who becomes the main character in
all my later writings, who "accidentally" interferes in
the war between several civilizations that were overseeing
Earth, in an initial alliance to preserve some kind of
tourist areas of development of life. Here the character
Iryu appears for the first time, in the role of a true
negotiator between civilizations, the humble earthling who
proves superior to all the "magnificent" civilizations
that tended the zoo of Earth.
This
is the period that defined my writing style where I tried
my best not to make my S.F. something like "three meet
with lasers" in the hand, "poof" and then, two die and one
writes the end". I was looking in everything I wrote to
make that "Aesopian translation" I mentioned earlier,
extrapolating my feelings, perceptions and experiences
into a kind of ideal perceived and presented in the
writings.
But,
the "revolution" comes and everything changes. The quiet,
orderly life with clear rules (literally) changes its
rules "during the game" and begins the capitalist phase of
my life (when I was 21 years old). My direct participation
in the revolution, insignificant, lost in the mass of the
crazy, demonstrating in the streets and then avoiding the
bullets or the wrath of the blindness of the mob (perhaps
more hysterical with fear, hatred and other such feelings
unleashed to the maximum) , gave me experiences that I
couldn't wait to put down on paper. And so, in 1991, I
complete the story "The Akar Case".
"The
Akar Case" is, in fact, my first novel. In it I present
the evolution of Akar who wakes up forced to participate
in a life that changes brutally from one kind of
arrangement to another. From an order in which life meant
the ultimate value to an order in which life no longer had
any value (all set in a SF world, of course). He sees how
fear takes the place of love, how division takes the place
of collaboration, and much, much more. He, following the
rules, inertial, easily characterized as maladapted, ends
up being found as the scapegoat for some events in the
novel but, through perseverance, he moves on regardless of
the path he is forced to "stay on".
And
so, the first part of my writing manifestations is
completed...
The
time comes for a new way of seeing the value of what I am
writing, the year 1992. Now, in a delegation where I went
due to work (at that time I was working in "foreign
trade"), I had the necessary "flash" to write "The Hotel
Room" which, in the next year, becomes a new novel of
mine.
"The
Hotel Room" is a novel that describes the story of Dan who
is contacted by an extraterrestrial civilization that
requests his consent to participate in an experiment. It
is negotiated and, in the end, Dan accepts the
participation requesting in return the fulfillment of
three wishes, just like in the old earthly stories (to be
"healthy", to be "smart and successful" and to see if he
will stay with his girlfriend his from that time, named
"Ben"). His choices being pretty "poor" the aliens grant
him one more wish and he asks to see what will happen on
the last day he will be.
They,
not understanding the substratum of the request, present
to him what will happen on the last day when he will act
freely, without involvement in the experiment. Time passes
and he realizes that he is caught in some kind of dead end
game, believing himself involved in the alien experiment
until the moment when, at the age of 64, the time comes
for him to participate in the experiment, proving that all
he has achieved until then, that "full of success" that
had asked him to be only his credit and those around him.
From this moment, due to the success enjoyed by my writings among my close associates, it leads me to begin the search to publish what I have written. I start to collaborate with publishers, to negotiate, but in 1993 the first theft of what I wrote takes place. There were times when there was no copyright law and the manuscript with the novel "The Simulator" (rewritten, because it was originally just a short story) appeared on the market under the name of... "The Simulator", the author being an imaginary Davis Ross.
In
1994 I graduated from law school which... was not
authorized, my money and time being wasted in the "tricks"
of those times. But, in 1993, I also completed a
post-secondary health school (for 3 years) which
introduced me to the medical world and "suggested" new
topics for the novels to come.
Meanwhile,
in 1995 I completed a new novel, "The Green Ocean".
"The
Green Ocean" is the story of an earthling who makes
contact with an insectoid civilization. In the
commercial-political actions that start this novel, the
"starting" of an "unnatural" love between an insectoid
female and the earthling Dan takes place. The completely
different, "hive" social rules of that civilization are
increasingly serious obstacles, but they do not put an end
to that unnatural love. The main obstacle is only the fact
that the final act of love, the coupling with its result
represented by one or more new lives, was represented by
the beheading of the male which only under these
conditions starts the fertility processes of the female.
But, the female's love for Dan prevails and their love
story ends quite well... You will see in the game! What is
interesting here is that I had begun to develop ever
clearer ideas of the indissoluble correlation of an
energetic life with a material one.
In
1997, I completed the novel "The Prize", a story in which
Dan, a human individual caught in the vortex of
colonization of the galaxy, travels strange roads, full of
adventures, to win the most coveted prize offered by the
Terra Academy, awarded for finding the Voyager-1 probe ,
the first human probe to leave solar space. Humanity ends
up attacking to own a planet on which there was a warlike
symbiosis between a kind of "new" civilization,
technologically advanced to the maximum, and an ancient,
native civilization, dedicated to nature. Multiple
civilization interactions, adventures, Dan becoming a kind
of go-between to the native gods, and much, much more.
The
year 1998 comes, when I was already "on the stock market"
for almost 2 years, as a broker. The new accumulations and
the completion of the faculty of economic sciences offered
me a new point of view and, thus, in 2002 I completed the
novel "The Colonist".
"The
Colonist" is the story of Dan, now also Mircea (Mircea
Dan), an adventurer who had the genius to find planets
"with resources", no matter what they are, before everyone
else. Adventures of all kinds, things like the wild west,
or pirates and law enforcement, profit grabbers,
everything being structured around a love story between
him and Maria, the one who will give him twins. The story
continues in the second novel, "The Colonists", completed
in 2004, following the fate of his twins and the reunion,
more specifically, the reincarnation of the entire family
divided by events. All in the same cynical, cruel
environment, following the development of the
personalities of all the main members involved... A kind
of classic novel...
At
this moment I had already been working on my dorinm.ro
site (in its previous forms) for 4 years. Also during this
period, the "road" of my attempts to publish stopped in
2003, when an acquaintance of mine, who owned one or more
publishing houses, and who had published the works of some
of his colleagues, informed me that it was much more
easily to publish according to the recipe "take a famous
work, rewrite it and publish it under another name" is
generally used by publishing houses, ensuring financial
success (even in those times when copyright had begun to
"assert itself").
This
was the moment when I gave up on publishing anything.
Disappointed, and defeated, but rationally appealing to
the fact that it was just a hobby. The "Romanian book"
belongs to those who have the necessary money to publish
and does not in any way support the release of the "new
ones" (but these are my disappointments and have nothing
to do with what I want to present here)...
2006
is the year in which "energetic" characters appear in my
writings. My health worsened and the close embrace of
death (thank God it was only illusory - as I am still
writing) brought me closer to expanding my knowledge
towards spirit or what we call energy. Thus, in 2008 I
finished the novel "Outcasts". I think it would be good to
mention that I lived the strange moments when no one in
the private world needed a sick person, and thus I ended
up as a governmental worker, with a real "disabled person"
salary. But let me come back!
"Outcasts"
is the story of some energetic entities that arrive on
Earth accidentally and rewrite the intergalactic rules of
this area of the galaxy. Terra is declared "in quarantine"
and the novel describes the path taken by the "outcast"
entities toward their release from quarantine. All this
because they knew that they were going to be called to the
natural order and they no longer wanted this. Conflicts,
and maneuvers of all kinds, all take place in an energetic
world that takes absolutely no account of the material
world in which it evolves. A kind of who is good and who
is bad in a carousel where everyone becomes everyone. I
don't give details because you will find everything in the
game, interactive book, or whatever you want to consider
what you will find here.
Starting
in 2008, I decided to develop the writing section of my
website (dorinm.ro) where, since 2003, I had only posted
the novel "The Simulator" (in a certain stage of
implementation - but which, even so, registered 17,000 of
downloads, giving me courage that my efforts are not in
vain). Then, initially, I had the idea of putting all the
novels on the net in their manuscript form. But those who
have written something know that whenever you start to
rewrite an older work you start to notice a strong feeling
of dissatisfaction and you can't stop yourself from
improving what you originally wrote. Well, moreover, I had
the "flash" of using the interactive environment of the
web support to make a kind of interactive story.
In
a short time, everything took an unexpected turn realizing
that I could structure all the novels into one. It all
started with the "gluing" according to the reader's
options of the first two novels... then the next, and the
next... Then there was the desire to introduce graphic
elements (a picture is worth 1,000 words).
Time
passed and, for those who know the Romanian reality, came
the time of the nightmare of governmental workers with the
cutting of allowances and salaries (in my position as IT
"head" in the ID cards service "remaining" with a salary
of only 600 lei/ less than 150 USD for a month - why would
I lie?!?). Moreover, during this period I also got my
master's degree in economic sciences. So, working more and
more to put a loaf of bread on the table, the time flew by
and I woke up already in 2011 (towards the end), bankrupt
and desperate.
This
is where the idea of turning everything into a game
(literally) came about. Having no money for licenses,
obviously, I turned to the open-source world. After a lot
of work, and a lot of selections and I ended up trying to
make the game (interactive books) in Novelty. This is a
very good platform, but since 2010 its development had
been abandoned. Multiple "bugs" made me stop (which my
older daughter will do a little later with her "Northern
Lights" game - in 2014).
And it was already 2013. Now I switched to the Ren'py
platform. Other efforts, but here too, I was struck by the
portability of the resulting product. And here I am at the
beginning of 2015.
The
search for solutions began and I came to the Unity
platform with its Fungus. Something quite similar to what
I had been doing up to that point. I started work, my
daughter adapted quite well to this platform... There was
also a request from a school to help her develop her own
game... And here we are, stuck with Unity.
But,
in this effort from the beginning of 2015, a new novel
titled "We are the Sons of Light" appeared, dictated at
the beginning to the one who thought she would become a
great game maker and, of course, then taken over and
completed by the one who gave it life from first to last
letter, that is, by me. Now, at the end of 2016 (God, how
fast time flies) here it is all moving forward toward
release... God help!
"We
are the Sons of Light" already benefits from all my
creative potential, and all my capacity developed over the
years. It is the story of a lifelong friendship that is
born between a human cub and a dinosaur cub (from the
draconians). The novel follows their entire evolution
until they become the sons of light, each for his race, or
for the entire life of our planet... Each will conclude...
So
I chose, regardless of the consequences, regardless of
what will come, to complete the game under the Unity
platform. It's a little heavier, being a professional
platform, but it does everything it needs to, from my
point of view, to make a product to my minimum idea of
functionality.
I
do, however, gain from these attempts (spanning nearly 4
years of work). I was able to experience a unique game
structure, my books, all 10, cumulatively becoming what
you will see over time. I say "in time" because I have to
rewrite, restructure, program, make graphics, etc. of what
I have written for over 30 years. That's... Anyway, TV
series, whether they are also called soap operas, are in
vogue...
I
am currently structuring the essential elements (menus,
action lines, etc.) but I will release the game, with the
certainty of transience and the uncertainty of everyday
life in a country like ours, on my birthday, May 31 (but
next year, that was in 2017). From that point on I will do
my best to release one episode every month, following a TV
series model of sorts. We'll see together what will happen
because it's work, believe me (!!!), especially since I
have to "place" everything on the dorinm.ro site that I'm
restructuring! Moreover, trying to "internationalize" the
work, I also make a translation, as well as I can, of all
the materials in English, French, German, Italian,
Spanish, and Portuguese.
Dorin M - December 15, 2016